Description
Book SynopsisNew Postcards from Rio de Janeiro examines the interconnections between notions of citizenship and space in the works of favela-based cultural producers. It argues that the emphasis on the favela daily life generates an aesthetic of representation involved in the rewriting of the city as part of a process of political resistance and affirmation of difference.
Trade Review"Studying important cultural works that trace shifting socioeconomic, cultural, and political patterns in Brazil in recent decades, da Costa Bezerra reveals the presence and importance of new sociocultural actors from Brazil's economically disenfranchised communities. A rare study that tackles the convergence between culture and human rights in present-day Brazil." -- -Leila Lehnen University of New Mexico "Postcards from Rio is an important contribution to the interdisciplinary field of scholarship on urban life in Rio. Da Costa Bezerra argues that favela-based cultural producers are engaging in forms of production that challenge the dominant narrative about favelas as violent, 'backward' places. By taking photographs and making films, murals, and fiction, they are both working against the hegemonic narratives of these communities and changing the internal imaginaries of what favelas are about for those who live in them." -- -Erika Robb Larkins University of Oklahoma
Table of ContentsIntroduction. Favelas: Challenging a Perverse Policy of Exclusion 1. Photographs and Favelas: Toward a Process of Self-Discovery and Belonging 2. Videos, Favelas, and Childhood: Reclaiming New Symbolic Geographies 3. Favelas for Sale: Resisting the Easy Links between Democracy and Urban Restructuring Plans 4. Monuments and Consumption: Defying Mechanisms of Social and Spatial Stratification Conclusion. Competing Discourses: Capital, Spatial Imaginaries, and Citizenship Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Index
